In the wake of Sandy, hurricane center revises warnings criteria

As you may recall, there’s something of a controversy stemming from the National Hurricane Center’s decision to not issue hurricane warnings for Sandy north of North Carolina.

Sandy near peak intensity. (NOAA)

Three days before landfall, believing Sandy would transition into a non-tropical system more like a winter storm before coming ashore, the hurricane center decided to leave “non-tropical” warnings and watches to local National Weather Service forecast offices.

In the month since the storm’s landfall, and with hurricane season ending Friday, this choice has created considerable consternation in the community of meteorologists and emergency managers who warn the public about storms.

“Its decision not to issue a hurricane warning as a hurricane was approaching the coast was, in my opinion, disastrous,” wrote Mike Smith, a senior AccuWeather forecaster and author of “Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather.”

As a result of this, according to Accuweather, the National Hurricane Center’s “hurricane warning” definition has now been changed to as follows:

An announcement that sustained winds of 74 mph or higher are expected somewhere within the specified area in association with a tropical, sub-tropical, or post-tropical cyclone. Because hurricane preparedness activities become difficult once winds reach tropical storm force, the warning is issued 36 hours in advance of the anticipated onset of tropical-storm-force winds. The warning can remain in effect when dangerously high water or a combination of dangerously high water and waves continue, even though winds may be less than hurricane force.

Chris Landsea, a forecaster at the hurricane center, said the main issue is that they want people to get ready for hurricane conditions.

Under the new definition hurricane warnings would have been issued for much of the mid-Atlantic coast, including New Jersey and New York.

UPDATE: The National Hurricane Center says the definition above is just a proposal, not yet set in stone.

17 Responses

I did warn all my relatives up in Yankeeland that a hurricane was coming. Let’s see… my father said, “No big deal.” Fortunately my step-Mother heeded my warning and stocked up on batteries and water (including the bathtub). They lost power for three days. My step-sister said, “We survived Irene, this is nothing.” Her semi-rural acreage used well water, powered by an electric pump. No power for a week. Oops.

At least my aunt in Brooklyn was ready. She remembered Irene (I know she remembers the Great Hurricane of 1938, too). She was prepared.

I’ll bet a lot of shoreline building codes will be changed after this storm. I saw some of the damage during a visit the weekend before Thanksgiving. No wonder the homes flooded. No seawall, little elevation on the homes, either.

Now if they could come up with some type of storm surge warning system. That is what is causing the damage and loss of life – storm surge. The high winds are not nearly as dangerous as water. Sandy, and Ike before, had massive storm surge fields causing damage along 100′s of miles of coast line.

Sadly, most folks will continue to vilify the NHC instead of applauding them for making such an important change immediately. They thought they were doing the right thing with the old procedure, but quickly recognized and corrected their mistake. This situation proves yet again that what looks good on paper doesn’t always work out in the real world.

It seems that the NHC is having to change procedures after every storm. Maybe they need to sit down and discuss “what if” situations and outline what they recommend in those situations. At least they would have a guide for when the seemingly impossible happens.

Maybe they need to sit down and discuss “what if” situations and outline what they recommend in those situations.

That’s exactly how they came up with the procedures they have. The problem, as I stated above, is that what looks good on paper doesn’t always work in reality. When they see that it doesn’t work they figure out why it failed and attempt to correct the procedure. Unfortunately, there’s no way to know for sure if the corrected procedure is really better until it is tested by a real situation.

I don’t object to them changing the procedure (as long as it’s still factual, accurate and useful) if they think that it will help someone, but I do object to the way people are BLAIMING the NHC for their own lack of preparedness.

Let’s be honest, with very few exceptions, people in many hard hit areas were given ample time and information to prepare themselves and their properties but simply chose NOT to do so. I read one interview with a professional athlete whose parents lived in a hard hit area and he said that all his parents had was a few bottles of water each and flashlights with no spare batteries before the storm! It was unbelievable that people did so little to prepare, they didn’t even do the easy things; complacency led to many of the problems that most people had after the storm.

They fell into the “We were fine last time” trap and many on the Gulf Coast could have warned them that eventually there will be a time when you won’t be fine. Prior to landfall there were many stories about Sandy, many stories about historicaly destructive hurricanes hitting the area, many warnings issued… and people chose not to heed any of it. I don’t think the NHC issuing more warnings would have changed the behavior of many of these people. They had already made up their minds that there wasn’t anything to be concerned about.

I hope that people on the east coast will remember to respect the destructive power of hurricanes for a long time but history suggests they won’t. They’ll forget this one, just as they forgot past storms and this will happen again.

Sandy is a prime example of when they roll snake eyes
and are not prepared for it.
People made their homes on Long Island and were totally
unprepared for Sandy.
Underground vaults full of bearer bonds and other financial
and legal documents were flooded.
Transportation systems were flooded.
Electrical grids were wrecked.

Some of the highest density populations in
the United States are in that area.
I really doubt that an adequate response could
have been designed for Sandy.

And while I did not follow the NWS on Sandy,
I could not get away from Sandy on The Weather Channel,
not a week before or a week after landfall.
The only thing The Weather Channel didn’t
do to show how dangerous Sandy was,
was to literally drown Stephanie Abrams.

I remember Alicia ’83, and the NWS on the radio giving location of center being “400 Miles East of Brownsville Texas, moving North”………wait – WHAT? – IOW= SOUTH OF HOUSTON MOVING NORTH !! , I switched over to Accuweather Joe Sobel ever since.

Later that year, a talk radio station was interviewing NWS about the recent hurricane that hit Galveston/Houston and i called in complaining to NWS guy
that they should not have given location relating to Brownsville and should have stressed relationship to Houston instead because of so many newbies in the area. He disagreed.